Cyclops (The Margellos World Republic of Letters) (78 page)

The empty corridor stretched away in both directions … To the right, of course! The captain was still chatting into the telephone on the left … Behind the lieutenant’s door came the sick man’s groans, burning up with fever, brandy and garlic, folk remedies. Smells. He tiptoed along. Heels pound straight from the coccyx, from the spine, from the head, with the entire weight of the body; on tiptoe the body loses weight, moves on light springs—ballet … The way thieves, spies, lovers walk, the way people who are skulking and escaping walk, with fear crawling over their skin.

Once in the doorway he treaded on his whole feet. Within reach of salvation: street, corner, broad urban expanse—tiny needle in haystack,
adieu, mon capitane
, regards from the volunteer deserter, now there’s a paradox.

“All OK, mate? Sorted it out with the brass?” asked the sergeant at the gate, already with a grin of familiarity.

“Yes indeed, sssergeant! Sssee you! Sssee you, too, sssentry!” he hissed mischievously.

The sergeant replied “See ya,” the soldier clicked his heels mechanically. He was in for a dressing-down by the sergeant: What did you click your heels for, nitwit? Saluting a civilian!—A volunteer deserter, Sergeant … if you’ve heard of that arm in the royal forces.

Melkior was in a great hurry to get around the next corner.

But why should I call her?—He halted in front of a telephone booth—that
four, four, Ambulance Service
business … I’ve forgotten the number anyway. I’ll go straight there. Coco has, as we said, been “called up.” That officer must be looking for me now,
goood
… Yelling at the sergeant: Why did you let him leave, you cretin! And the Black Maria standing in front of the Garrison Command gate, wide open … its bowels stinking of Lysol … waiting for the volunteer deserter—apparently, in vain.

The tram was chiming with holiday courtesy, greeting acquaintances on the street—hey there! It did not care that the day was cold and bleak. Coming calmly to a halt, its windows smiling: won’t you come in? It took Melkior aboard, too, ting-a-ling, let’s go. The traveling burghers were morose, angry, call this Palm Sunday?—You’ve got to wear a winter coat, snowing like it’s New Year’s Eve! No, honestly—everything’s gone haywire!

A burgher was venting his anger at the weather, heh-heh. … Off to his Sunday lunch, potage, plaice, poultry, pork, pies, puff pastry, pancakes, pass the port, pop the cork, let’s have a bit of a singsong … aah, they’ve spoiled it all, the idiots! Who can eat under these circumstances? The brutes went and hung a war overhead—go on, knock the plate with your fork if you can! And all that on Palm Sunday, if you please! Chose the right day for it, that’s for sure!

Back, in childhood, there blew a close, hot, moist, so-called
passion day
southerly wind; the sky without a trace of blue, with ragged rapid clouds, the sea lead-gray, mournful … It gave you a foretaste of the Savior’s passion and death. Dom Kuzma had explained at school beforehand that it had been like that, too, during that long-ago week (which we now call the Holy Week) from Palm Sunday, when Jesus had entered Jerusalem, to Holy Saturday, or rather Holy Sunday, Resurrection Day, when He was resurrected. (Melkior was never clear on whether Jesus had been resurrected on Saturday, at the second peal of the bells, or on Sunday, when Easter is celebrated … but nobody dared ask Dom Kuzma). The boys in the white sailor suits, the girls in the white dresses, with braided palm fronds and olive twigs in their hands, under the tall church vaults, in the fragrant smoke of incense, in the sounds of the organ … a grand occasion. Now and again the bishop himself, under his miter, crosier in hand, would serve Mass, the Pontifical, and they would undress him and put on his robes, put his shoes off and on, and Dom Kuzma appeared to be a valet to a lord. Melkior was amazed: how could Dom Kuzma be such a … a nobody, just someone who put the Bishop’s slippers on for him?

But then on Good Friday, when they showed Jesus’ Passion in Church, Dom Kuzma was Jesus! They all shouted in his face: crucify him, crucify him! Annas and Caiaphas the high priests, scribes, customs men, Pharisees and servants in Caiaphas’s palace. … Dost thou answer the high priest so? an officer said to him and slapped him on the cheek. And Dom Kuzma, in a long white robe with a palm branch over a mighty shoulder, his ears jutting out alarmingly, took it all in stride and replied, mild, meek, humble: If I have spoken evil, bear witness to the evil: but if well, why smitest thou me? Pilate, the Roman procurator, was the only one who did not shout. He was indeed prepared to release him. What he saw was just a harmless fellow spouting drivel … Art thou the King of the Jews? he asked the poor dreamer with seigneurial irony … he was at a loss for what to do with the crank. And Dom Kuzma again said meekly, humbly: My kingdom is not of this world … Pilate went out to face the Judaean mob: shall I crucify your King? The occupying potentate was mocking the enslaved people divided by political passions. We have no king but Caesar! bellowed the mob mindlessly. Away with this man, and release unto us Barabas! Pilate did as they demanded and washed his hands diplomatically: that was how it was with the dirty business of politics …

Melkior had been incensed by the injustice.

… And Dom Kuzma could have crushed the entire churchful of them with his bare hands … only nobody dared mention anything about his ears!

“It’s all some big business deal or other and spit in my face if it isn’t.” The burgher (he had a gold watch-chain across his belly) was very angry at “this war”: this is only the beginning, there’s no telling what we’re in for next …

“I daresay there are loftier things: after all, people die for their ideals!” The other was disgusted at the vulgar approach: “That’s materialism, that is!” he exclaimed accusingly. “It’s all the rage with the hotheads these days …” he was looking suspiciously at Melkior (or so it seemed to Melkior), this chap’s eavesdropping on our conversation a bit too closely …

“No war has been anything but a business deal since year one, and you can call me a jackass if you like! It was always a case of someone making a bundle … and someone else biting the dust.”

“Oh!” cried
the idealist
cut to the quick, “and what about the honorable victims, what about the fallen heroes?”

“It’s all about biting the dust, call me an ape if you like. It’s all savagery … wheeling and dealing.”

Melkior was getting off at the next stop. Pity. Will
the idealist-warrior
spit in his face?

“How many wise men have perished at the hands of savage soldiery? Ever since ancient Greece and Rome. Carthage …”

“Syracuse!” shouted Melkior jumping off the tram. “Archimedes murdered! Lepanto, Cervantes’ arm crippled!”

The tram was already pulling out,
the materialist
smiled at him behind glass in gratitude for his help.

Arm … the right or the left? Actually cut off … with a sword? Longin Podbipieta. Those were Turks at Lepanto, Damascus sabers … Where’s this Lepanto place anyway? Perhaps he wrote all of
Don Quixote
with his left hand … and in a dungeon at that, on bread and water. A cripple. Don Miguel Saavedra. “Do you think, gentlemen, that it’s an easy job to inflate a dog?” says the madman in the preface to Part Two. “Do you think, sir, that it’s an easy job to write a book?” adds Don Miguel, the cripple of Lepanto.

He was in front of Enka’s house.

“I have often walked down this street before …” he hummed in a low voice (there was a song that went like that) and halted at the door. What on earth’s the matter with me? He knew there was no reason at all to go upstairs. None at all?—No! he replied resolutely and turned his back to the door.

Yes, but where to? The street is short, empty, morose. Closed in on either side by the questions
right? left?
He spared each side a contempt-inspired look. Weak motives as motives go: one corner with a sundries shop (a loping deer—Zlatorog soap), the other a stunted bare sapling tied protectively to a pole—authority. Enter
motive-following action.
Buridan’s ass finally met its death in plenty (the pampered creature), indeed it had two haystacks to choose between (luxury!), but it died for a principle like some heroic character out of Corneille, hail to him! Hail to Buridan’s ass between the two haystacks … whereas I wasn’t given so much as two straws to decide between, not a hollow straw to clutch at …

Numbly he watched the descent of the sparse snowflakes: disappearing before even touching down. The brief life of a snowflake. Flutter and die. And yet, how the duration may seem long to the flake! A life of insubstantial weightlessness, a floating, a white dream on the way from sky to Earth … And the Earth spells the end of that masterpiece, the fallen star made of lacy crystals.

He was looking at the tiny perfection on his sleeve. The minute six-pointed wonder! (All snow stars are six-pointed … it’s presumably prescribed by a celestial canon of beauty.) The white star shining on a dark sky of unworthy cloth. Displaying a peaceful, wise, meek dignity of its orderly whiteness in this world of black, disorderly, back-to-savagery things. The Cyclops Polyphemus, the beast, now treads the Earth. You can feel his contagious breath … The tiny white star winkled out, melted into a dewdrop.

Right or left? stirred Melkior. Here are your motives: the Zlatorog soap-ad yellow deer and the stunted young tree next to its warden, the dry, self-righteous pole. He opted for the pole. It was after all some kind of authority, was that prideful male vertical. It was advancing to meet the events … while the deer (yellow to boot!) was rearing in panicky flight, a clear picture of fear, run for your life!

Melkior approached the runty sapling: all of its buds were still firmly closed, the little one was still afraid to face the world. He patted the pole: hello, Stoic! Seneca, in burning Rome!

On that side of the street the houses were sparser. Two-story family houses in the middle of small decorative garden plots protected by dogs and iron (bars).

From the houses came music, jaunty, bright, holiday-like, middle class; after a heavy lunch, a siesta by the gramophone: operetta, pop hit,
march tran-tam, ran tan-tam … Baron Trenk. Once more to offer you my hand before we paaart. When you’re all alone and far from home
… A flashing thought of Viviana, bitter solitude, envy of
home and hearth
… “A home of one’s own.”
A homeland have I
… What’s “my homeland”? The street, the Give’nTake, Enka’s bedroom, the “separate-entrance room” at Mrs. Ema’s? They’re already looking for the deserting volunteer there … The “New World Order” will by now have been established at the Give’nTake, there’s likely to be a new
Kio
at Enka’s … Let us go, then, you and I to the broad expanses of our Homeland! To the meadows, to the fields with the shepherd’s pipe …
thy flatlands dear
… To the pampas, gaucho, to the prairies! To the deserts to gnaw at the roots of prophets and catch grasshoppers in preparation for the great temptation …

He was already striding along outside city limits, through the fields, down well-trodden muddy lanes. He still heard a tram’s
ting-a-ling
from the suburban terminus. Goodbye, Melkior said to it, the time for joking is over, I’m not accepting the
ting-a-ling.
I’m off to face Polyphemus the man-eater who now treads the Earth … in order to scuttle between his legs before he plugs the cave entrance with his rock. And when I’m out (if I’m out) I’ll shout for all I’m worth: Cyclops, you one-eyed bloodthirsty brute …—Why
do you go and taunt the savage again?—lf only I could rob him of life and soul!

In the distance there resounded a loud crack. At nearly the same instant an angry insect in furious flight whizzed past Melkior’s ear. He hugged the Earth in a trice.

That’s the one from Essen, ha-ha, laughed Melkior’s nose in the wet grass. Missed me, ha-ha! Let the Earth hear, whispered Melkior into the mud beneath, let the pipes play:
Polyphemus the Cyclops, the one-eyed bloodthirsty brute, Polyphemus the Cyclops, the one-eyed bloodthirsty brute
…

A light was glowing around him, as if a setting sun had pierced the clouds. But Melkior was not lifting his head: he was prostrating himself before his great good fortune which had lain down along his back, pressing him to the Earth. Don’t stir, don’t move a finger, play dead, said Fortune. —I will, I will, I will, he panted obediently. … Because that thing may still be after me, right? asked Melkior sensibly.—Where are
you
off to, he said to an ant which was clambering up a leaf of grass and using its feelers to examine the strange thicket above its eye (
and brushwood and brambles and brackens
, says the ant perhaps), why do you go and taunt the savage? Don’t move, play dead. But the ant is not heeding Fortune … there’s nothing that can touch it … it is counting the hairs in Melkior’s eyebrow. Irritating, tickling …

Melkior is not even blinking, not betraying Fortune: if she says you’re dead, that’s it—you’re dead. The main thing is you know it and can tell yourself you’re dead, you mustn’t even blink. To live, now there’s the challenge. So tell the grass (Fortune advises him): don’t grow, spring won’t put forth its buds here. What is the point of flowers and green leaves?
He
leaves nothing behind,
he
will trample everything underfoot, browse everything bare … scoff at all of spring. And tell the Earth: don’t wake up … be a cold, icy, darkness-bound, hard, unfriendly rock. Be a dark home to the dead. Be a grave. And tell yourself (Fortune tells him): don’t breathe, don’t stir—he will guzzle your breath, break your movements. Crawl underground to gnaw the roots of hermits, crawl underwater, under the stone like a beetle …

Look, one had just crawled out from under a stone. Making straight for his eye. Horned, hairy on the belly and sides, weighed down by the hard plate glistening metallically on its insidious bent back. Moving awkwardly, clumsily, on long articulated legs—six all told, Melkior counted. The huge monster had filled the field of vision of his one eye (he has closed the other one).